Thursday, May 17, 2012

News Links, May 18, 2012

Moody's downgrades Spanish regions
"Spain got yet another slap in the face Thursday, when Moody's Investors Service downgraded four regions of the country due to their poor fiscal performance.
"The credit ratings agency issued the downgrade of Catalunya, Murcia, Andalucia and Extremadura because the regional governments are using massive amounts of debt to fund their operations and are unlikely to meet a financial target set by Spain's central government."

Exclusive: ECB stops operations with some Greek banks
"The European Central Bank has stopped providing liquidity to some Greek banks as they have not been successfully recapitalized, the ECB said on Wednesday, confirming news earlier reported exclusively by Reuters."

S.Africa "confident" of solution to Iran oil ban
"South Africa, which receives a quarter of its crude from Iran, is holding almost daily discussions with the United States, EU Union and Iran about reducing its purchases and is 'confident' a deal can be struck to avert U.S. sanctions, a senior energy official said on Thursday."

Chile advances plan to build submarine
"Chile is going ahead with plans to build its own submarine and patrol boats as part of a program to develop the Latin American nation's defense manufacturing industry."

India cannot afford import of large quantities of crude oil:FM
"Amid rising global crude oil prices, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today warned of 'disastrous consequences' if corrective steps are not taken to deal with the problem as India cannot afford import of large quantities at high prices.
"'Petroleum prices are increasing by leaps and bounds. We cannot keep them under any carpet. If we do not take corrective measures, we will have to face disastrous consequences,' he said."

"Crude from the Bakken oil play and the Canadian oil sands sells at a steep discount to Brent crude, which sets the price benchmark on the Gulf Coast. Producers hope to boost the price they get for their crude if they can just get the black stuff to more liquid market. For consumers, closing the price differential will very likely mean higher prices."

"No civilization has ever faced the agricultural challenges confronting us over the coming decades. Ever. And if we can pull it off – wherever we CAN pull it off – it will necessarily be with an agriculture of maximum resilience; an agriculture that can get knocked down and stagger back up again and again and again. So let's do this."

100 Rio buildings risk collapse, official says
"More than 100 abandoned buildings in Rio de Janeiro are in such poor condition they are at risk of collapsing, the head of a regional engineering agency said Wednesday, a day after part of a two-story building crumbled in the Olympic city's colonial downtown."

Italy deploys 20,000 to protect sensitive targets
"Italy increased security Thursday at 14,000 sites, and assigned bodyguards to protect 550 individuals after a nuclear energy company official was shot and letter bombs directed to the tax collection agency."

"It's unclear, though, how long Japan itself can continue on that path, with policymakers also focused on trying to boost taxes to reign in the country's sovereign debt which is twice the size of its economy, the worst level among industrialized nations, and even worse than Greece."